He claims he was "killing himself" when he plunged the 239 people on board to their deaths while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpar in 2014.

And now, the Independent Group, the leading non-government analysis team looking into the disappearance of MH370, believes they can prove this theory.

The group found the Boeing 777's flight path near Penang was chosen to deceive radar operators into believing the aircraft had an intention to land.

The comprehensive report published by Victor Iannello has used civilian radar data that became publicly available in April 2018 which provides insights as to how MH370 was flown after the transponder was disabled around 5.20pm UTC.

Mr Iannello said that “after flying by waypoint IGARI and turning back, the aircraft passed to the north of Kota Bharu Airport, crossed the Malaysian peninsula in a southwest direction, passed to the south of Penang Island, turned to the northwest, and flew over the Malacca Strait”.

FOUND: A piece of debris identified as a flaperon from missing flight MH370 (Pic: PA)

His report added: “In order to better understand the sequence of inputs to the flight control system, we created a simulation using the PMDG 777 model in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

"In particular, we studied whether the aircraft might have been flown with the pilot providing inputs to the autopilot, and what those inputs might have been.”

The IG report also found that “MH370’s flight path near Penang can be replicated with the autopilot engaged and the flight path near Penang is consistent with the image of the military radar data in the Malacca Strait that was never officially released.”

“It is very unlikely that there was an intention to land at Penang Airport,” said Mr Iannello.

The study also found that aircraft’s flight computers were programmed before the turn for a path northwest up the Malacca Strait.